Leave Them Kids Alone

Teachers in England should not be banned from membership of the British National Party or any group which may promote racism, a review has concluded. The government commissioned the report after a leaked list identified 15 BNP members as teachers.

Yeah because institutions full of young impressionable minds at the mercy of authority is just where you want fucking Nazis. How the hell is the parent of any child who is not white and straight (and let’s face it, male, don’t recall a lot of positive feminism from the BNP unless it is- outbreed the immigrants you chattel bints) trust a teacher who not only supports the BNP but loves fascism and racism so much they join the frickin’ party. And- any group which may promote racism- together with folding on faith schools is government education, education and education policy to just keep replicating the same idiocies and prejudices of their generation? (while denying future generations the funding for university they had in abundance… sorry kids we fucked your planet and your education but here’s the good news you are now so unhealthy from pollution and dumb from neglect you don’t give a shit, here have another prozac chew, to think you used not to able to buy these in sweet shops, progress!).

BNP Continue To Be Not At All Racist

A new piece of tat is added to their awful online souvenir shop-

(from Lancaster Unity) Queen Elizabeth I’s Blackamoore Expulsion Order It is not widely known that between 1596 and 1601, Queen Elizabeth I ordered the expulsion of all non-indigenous Third World people, whom she called “blackamoores” from Britain. Now, for the first time ever, Excalibur is proud to exclusively offer reproductions of the original expulsion orders…Both original handwritten orders have been reproduced in full on fine quality thick paper, suitable for framing or display.

Hmm, now why would a totally not-at-all-racist party be selling that so proudly?????

EDL’s Epic Fail In Wrexham

After the on the spot reportage now the Daily Post weighs in-

FOUR people were arrested at an anti-Muslim demonstration amid a strong police presence in Wrexham. Around 40 members of a group calling themselves the Welsh Defence League (WDL) shouted racial abuse and gestured towards locals, saying they were protesting against plans for a new mosque. Four people were arrested for public order offences, and North Wales’s Temporary Deputy Chief Constable, Ian Shannon said the day passed without “significant incident”. Meanwhile Unite Against Fascism held a counter-protest, near where the WDL gathered on Saturday.

And a Wrexham Communities Against Racism festival attracted around 200 people. Residents were joined by faith groups, the Wales TUC, Searchlight, Unison and members of Wrexham Council. Searchlight Cymru secretary Ian Titherington said none of the WDL protestors were Welsh, and they appeared to be members of the English Defence League (EDL). He said: “This was the final humiliation for the EDL’s disastrous visits to Wales. The only way they could hold an event was to bus in 30 from Bolton, who on arrival went to the nearest pub, got drunk and bawled out racist chants.

The EDL gathering did not exactly sell any local links, by displaying a Bolton Wanderers FC English flag and singing God Save the Queen.” The WDL was formed in June 2009 as an off-shoot of the EDL, which claims to campaign against Islamic extremism. The group insists it is not fascist. But at a march in Swansea in October, onlookers were confronted by jeering men giving Nazi salutes, and one was arrested for a racially aggravated public order offence.

An EDL supporter posted a short video (subtitled ‘Outnumbered and we still stand our ground‘ thus admitting their low numbers and it’s not so much ‘stand our ground’ as milling around where the cops said to stand so your small group doesn’t disrupt the traffic or any passing badgers) in which you can hear no Welsh accents, they chant EDL not WDL, plus the worst/funniest murdering of God Save The Queen I have yet to hear (a piece of music that is so droning, joyless & plodding it is almost impossible to wreck it, yet somehow…they do!). You almost feel sorry for them, I don’t think this is endangering any kind of no platform policy, propaganda’s meant to improve your image, not demolish it. Comedy gold-

Anti Fascists Outnumber EDL Morons 2 to 1

A good day for Manchester, would have been better if the EDL hadn’t bothered, but nonetheless, I suppose friendless bores & bigots rarely perceive when they are not welcome. Live site at the Manchester Evening News.

I would also add worth reading is this tangled tale that involves the racist senior EDL operator Paul Ray of the lamentable Lionheart blog, apparently forging online identities to create fake terror stories to smear Muslims with and the corporate media go along with it. No really, try to be surprised. This is in addition to the fine work of Tim Ireland @ Bloggerheads. Seems a number of racist fantasists form the backbone of a terror porn creating cabal that help keeps the war on terror bullshit flowing in tabloid land, all with a common trait of rabid Islamophobia. Of course creating incidents to gather support is a very old fascist tactic and that Patrick ‘once fired for racism‘ Mercer MP the Tory Chairman of the Commons sub-committee on counter-terrorism and erstwhile shadow spokes-mannequin for Fatherland ‘Homeland’ security is involved is so far being ignored by that same corporate media.

The BNP/Loyalist Crossover Forces Romanians From Their Homes

The BNP base their ‘call centre’ in Belfast where Jim Dowson — a top BNP fundraiser and a militant anti-abortion campaigner who has a string of criminal convictions and has had links to mass-murderer Michael Stone (the loyalist terrorist)– runs their operations. Nick Griffin visited there secretly just before the European elections-

BNP leader Nick Griffin made a secret trip to the Belfast base less than two weeks ago to film a propaganda video. Our exclusive picture shows Griffin pictured at the Belfast HQ flanked by two members of staff, whose identity we have protected.

However in most reports the origins of these racist crimes are rather vague, they balk at mentioning it is linked to fringe loyalists let alone the relationship between loyalists and the BNP. While the remnant Loyalist leadership condemn the attacks it appears the younger ones are feeling their oats and turning their hatred temporarily from Catholics onto Romanians and Poles, all of course encouraged by the BNP and Combat 18 Nazism who share the bigotry that includes hatred of Catholics (including insane theories such as the Islamic/Catholic/EU/Sinn Fein/IRA plot to destroy the UK with Catholic immigrants!).

Racists who forced Romanians to flee their homes threatened to cut a baby’s throat, it emerged today. Over 100 men, women and children were this morning taken to the Ozone complex in Belfast after they spent the night in a church hall following sustained attacks by a racist mob claiming to be from the fascist group Combat 18.

Thugs who target migrants in Northern Ireland for racist attack are guilty of ethnic cleansing, a community worker said today. Large parts of south Belfast are in danger of becoming no-go areas after 20 Romanian families were forced to spend the night at a church hall, Patrick Yu added. Bricks have been thrown through windows in the Protestant working-class Village area with increasing frequency in recent weeks.

Now the BNP have two MEP’s I think it is incumbent on the media to ask them directly their views on the attacks and to see if they will condemn them and demand all members and associates cease any activity they may be involved in. Will political journalists on TV have the guts to confront fascism on the air? It should also be asked how the police allowed it to get this bad, given their historic ties to loyalists and their paramilitaries should we deduce they ignored the victimisation of Romanians as those doing it had links to Loyalist groups gangs? Is the bias in British media in favour of Loyalism not allowing the true picture of bigotry to emerge? Many in the community though are far more courageous and if their lead had been followed this refugee crisis could perhaps have been averted, if the hardcore violent fascists had been dealt with by the police-

One family fled from their home in Belgravia Avenue. Another family, with a newborn baby, has been left terrified after their home at Wellesley Avenue came under attack just days after they were forced out of another property.

Their south Belfast homes came under sustained attack from Thursday evening, with their windows smashed and doors kicked in by crowds of thugs gathering outside shouting racist slogans. 

A number of local residents last night stood guard outside their new home in a bid to protect them.

One local resident, Paddy Meehan, said: “About 12 of us worked in shifts to defend the house last night. Local residents think these people have to be defended. These thugs have been shouting that they are Combat 18 and they dropped a letter containing text from Hitler’s Mein Kampf through the letterbox of one of the properties.

“This has been going on for several nights. Sometimes there is about 20 of them gathering outside the properties. There is a hardcore of maybe six or seven shouting abuse and kicking doors down.These families are terrified, so are all their young children. They feel very isolated which is why the local community is gathering around them to support them,” he added.

The PSNI said police in south Belfast are investigating a number of racist attacks and criminal damage to properties and a car in Wellesley Avenue and Belgravia Avenue on a number of occasions between June 11 and 14.

A spokeswoman added: “A crowd gathered on each occasion at the properties and a number of windows were smashed. Police have not received reports of any injuries.”

Major hat tip to Lancaster Unity.

The extent to which the true roots of this racist violence are obscured will determine its spread and increase in severity elsewhere. Because of the soft spot for loyalists in the British establishment there is the danger of it not being dealt with and spreading. Or as Dave Osler puts it-

The Six Counties has always been a case apart from the rest of the United Kingdom, if I can be permitted to use the two geographical expressions in the same sentence. Just because something happens in Belfast, that doesn’t mean that it must necessarily happen in Burnley.

But sadly, it does not take too much of a leap of the imagination to see that if bricks can readily fly through immigrant windows in Belfast, the tactic may yet be duplicated in many English towns. If the bricks are one day followed by firebombs, then yes, we will be talking about pogroms.

Fascism Is For Failures

The BNP are racists & fascists, who revel in violence and eugenics. If you vote for them, so are you. Don’t kid yourself, this isn’t politics, you’re a piece of shit. Clear?

The Guardian… the anti-fascist organisation Searchlight has spent months infiltrating the far right’s network of websites and chatrooms and found that many BNP activists share O’Sullivan’s views.

 They include:

 • Jeffrey Marshall, senior organiser for the BNP’s London European election campaign. Following the death of David Cameron’s disabled son Ivan, Marshall claimed in an internet forum discussion: “We live in a country today which is unhealthily dominated by an excess of sentimentality towards the weak and unproductive. No good will come of it.”

 Later, in response to comments made by others on the site, Marshall is alleged to have written: “There is not a great deal of point in keeping these people alive after all.” He said the comments were private and some had been paraphrased and taken out of context. He admitted making the former comment, but said he could not recall making the latter one in an email to the forum, a copy of which is in the Observer’s possession.

 • Garry Aronsson, Griffin’s running mate for the European parliament in the North West, posts an avatar on his personal web page featuring a Nazi SS death’s head alongside the statement, “Speak English Or Die!” Aronsson proclaims on the site: “Every time you change your way of life to make immigrants more comfortable you betray OUR future!” He lists his hobbies as “devising slow and terrible ways of paying back the Guardian-reading cunts who have betrayed the British people into poverty and slavery. I AM NOT JOKING.”

 • Barry Bennett, MEP candidate for the South West, posted several years ago under a pseudonym in a white supremacist forum the bizarre statement that “David Beckham is not white, he’s a black man.” Bennett, who is half-Jewish according to the BNP’s deputy leader, Simon Darby, continued: “Beckham is an insult to Britishness, and I’m glad he’s not here.” He added: “I know perfectly respectable half-Jews in the BNP… even Hitler had honorary Aryans who were of Jewish descent… so whatever’s good enough for Hitler’s good enough for me. God rest his soul.”

 • Russ Green, MEP candidate for the West Midlands, posted recently on Darby’s web page: “If we allowed Indians, Africans, etc to join [the BNP], we would become the ‘British multi-National party’ … and I really do hope that never happens!” Darby said he echoed Green’s sentiments.

 • Dave Strickson, a BNP organiser who helps run its eastern region European election campaign, carried on his personal “Thurrock Patriots” blog a recent report of the fatal stabbing of a teenager in east London beneath the words “Another teen stabbed in Coon Town”. The site also carried a mock-up racist version of the US dollar entitled “Obama Wog Dollar”. Darby said the BNP did not endorse these comments and described them as “beyond the pale”.

 When confronted in the past about the extreme views of some of its members, the BNP senior hierarchy has often tried to dismiss them as unrepresentative of the party’s core membership. But it appears that they run right to the top of the party.

 Lee Barnes, the BNP’s senior legal officer and one of Griffin’s closest allies, has posted a video on his personal blog of a black suspect being beaten by police officers in the US and describes it as “brilliant”. Barnes adds: “The beating of Rodney King still makes me laugh.”

 Barnes told the Observer his comments were “nothing to do with colour” but were merely a reflection of his belief that the police should have more powers to punish perpetrators of crime by “giving them a good thrashing”.

Racist Records

Via Complex System of Pipes this is a brilliant clip by Love Music Hate Racism, makes the point. Spread it around, make sure you vote on June 4th, make sure you help stop the fascist BNP.

Love Music Hate Racism                        Hope Not Hate

Update: Socialist Unity have the full rundown on the creation of the clip.

Gitmo In Brooklyn

From Pulse–

…immediately after 9/11, hundreds of men were rounded up by the FBI and other police forces in the US and imprisoned in high security American jails: 760 in total, 184 of whom were considered especially interesting by the authorities. Just over half of them were interred at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, a former warehouse on the waterfront overlooking the harbour and the Statue of Liberty. The story was covered by the New York Times, but it was treated, mostly, as local news and carried in the ‘New York Region’ section of the paper.

 Almost all of the prisoners were held for infractions of their immigration papers; without the status of citizens, they were held indefinitely and had little recourse to lawyers. None of them was waterboarded or electrocuted but many were physically abused by some of the prison guards. A favourite tactic was to blindfold a prisoner and then order him to walk forward without telling him he was going to walk into a wall. Noses bled; some presumably were broken. A T-shirt had been hung on the wall, and on it, along with the spilt blood of the prisoners, was an American flag and the words: ‘These colours don’t run.’

 The wardens woke the prisoners up in the night – the lights were anyway left on to make it hard to sleep. The prisoners were regularly stripped searched, and shackled at all times. Cameras monitored their every movement. Some video footage showing abuse was destroyed, but not all of it. When a group of prisoners went on hunger strike, wardens were caught on film talking about how they would ‘break’ these inmates: ‘Let’s get a team,’ the warden said. ‘Let’s go with a tube. The first guy that gets that tube shoved down his throat, they’ll be cured! We’re going hard.’ On hearing this plan of action, another warden said: ‘Outstanding!’ Then the first warden carried on where he had left off: ‘We’re going hard.’

 Some had pens stuck up their rectums. All, it seems, were howled at: ‘mother fuckers’, ‘fucking Muslims’ and ‘bin Laden Junior’ were some of the names they were called. Also heard at the prison were these remarks:

•  ‘Whatever you did at the World Trade Center, we will do to you.’
  
• ‘You’re never going to be able to see your family again.’
  
• ‘If you don’t obey the rules, I’m going to make your life hell.’
  
• ‘You’re never going to leave here.’
  
• ‘You’re going to die here just like the people in the World Trade Center died.’
  
• ‘Someone thinks you have something to do with the terrorist attacks, so don’t expect to be treated well.’
  
• ‘Don’t ask any questions, otherwise you will be dead.’
  
• ‘Put your nose against the wall or we will break your neck.’
  
• ‘If you question us, we will break your neck.’
  
• ‘I’m going to break your face if you breathe or move at all.’
  
• ‘Shut the fuck up! Don’t pray. Fucking Muslim. You’re praying bullshit.’
  
• ‘Welcome to America.’
  

The abuse of prisoners in Brooklyn was the subject of a Justice Department inquiry in 2003, though there was never the same furor about what happened at that prison as there was over Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib or Bagram Air Force Base. ‘We make no apologies for finding every legal way possible to protect the American public from further terrorist attacks,’ Barbara Comstock, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department said of the report.

 One inmate, an Egyptian, was eventually awarded $300,000 in damages, though no warden was prosecuted. Nor, for that matter, was any of these prisoners ever among those charged with terrorism, though they were all said at the time of their arrest to be highly dangerous. In the end, many were simply deported and events in Brooklyn were forgotten, though last week one of the former inmates saw his case reach the Supreme Court – he had argued that the former attorney general John Ashcroft was responsible for the abuse – only for it be thrown out.

Tell Clear Channel Not To Profit Off Racism

I just sent my email to Clear Channel Sales Dept. now add yours Click Here

The BNP’s message of hate is being spread across the country by a small but dedicated band of racist activists.

But now, a commercial media organisation is seeking to financially profit from the BNP’s vicious campaign. Clear Channel – one of the UK’s largest poster and billboard companies – have sold the BNP adverts across the country.

They have provided the BNP with high profile sites – putting the BNP’s racist message on a pedestal and giving them the oxygen of publicity. In a matter of days these billboards and posters will be spreading across the country. But we can stop them if enough of us complain to Clear Channel and we get them to cancel their contract.

We have set an easy-to-use page so you can send a letter of complaint – will you send them a message of complaint?

Click Here

Not Racist, But…

A high-ranking Metropolitan Police officer is starting a claim of racial discrimination against the force. Met Commander Ali Dizaei claims ex-Met commissioner Sir Ian Blair and chief executive Catherine Crawford colluded to suspend him from duty.

Mr Dizaei was suspended by the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) in September accused of misconduct. He has denied any misconduct. The MPA said it awaited official notification of Mr Dizaei’s actions. A Metropolitan Black Police Association (MBPA) spokeswoman said papers would be served at the Employment Tribunal Office in central London on Wednesday.

MBPA chairman Alfred John said: “The Metropolitan Police Authority will have difficulty explaining how an officer, who according to very senior police officers performs exceptionally well in his job, has been suspended from duty when white senior officers subject to more serious complaints remain on duty and are, in fact, promoted.”

An Independent Police Complaints Commission report into alleged misconduct by Mr Dizaei, in relation to the arrest of a man at a London restaurant, has been handed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Other inquiries are understood to concern the alleged misuse of a corporate credit card and claims that Mr Dizaei advised a defence lawyer in the case of a woman involved in a road traffic accident.

But Mr Dizaei claims one of the reasons he was suspended was to prevent him representing Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur, who last month agreed an out-of-court settlement in a race claim against the Met.

Meanwhile in an entirely unrelated story…

The father of 3-year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell, denied a birthday cake with the child’s full name on it by one New Jersey supermarket, is asking for a little tolerance. Heath Campbell and his wife, Deborah, are upset not only with the decision made by the Greenwich ShopRite, but with an outpouring of angry Internet postings in response to a local newspaper article over the weekend on their flare-up over frosting.

The Campbells’ other two children also have unusual names: JoyceLynn Aryan Nation Campbell turns 2 in a few months and Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie Campbell will be 1 in April. Heath Campbell said he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked the name and because “no one else in the world would have that name.” He sounded surprised by all the controversy the dispute had generated.

The Campbells ultimately got their cake decorated at a Wal-Mart in Pennsylvania, Deborah Campbell said. About 12 people attended the birthday party on Sunday, including several children who were of mixed race, according to Heath Campbell. “If we’re so racist, then why would I have them come into my home?” he asked.

Campbell said his ancestors are German and that he has lived his entire life in Hunterdon County. On Tuesday he wore a pair of black boots he said were worn by a German soldier during World War II. He said he was raised not to avoid people of other races but not to mix with them socially or romantically. But he said he would try to raise his children differently.

“Say he grows up and hangs out with black people. That’s fine, I don’t really care,” he said. “That’s his choice.”

Gosh “several children who were of mixed race”, what a total non-racist… and y’know ignore the names, the Nazi boots and the thing about interracial mixing, because he said he’s going to “try“.

Pretending not to be a racist wanker- FAIL! And that’s my choice.

Fascism Rising

As Frank Sidebottom would sing ‘it is, it really is.’ First of all the Homeland, Larisa Alexandrovna is in DC and at her hotel a ‘Values voter’ shindig is also going on, go to Atlargely for more (&pics of the Obama Waffles) but a snippet or two-

As you can see, it shows an image of Obama as a turbaned “Osama” and the text in the red box says “Point the box toward Mecca for tastier waffles.”

I asked the “chef” of this ugly version of reality if he was at all concerned that this might be viewed as a white man putting a black man into a frying pan and he laughed and said “I hope so.”

I sat down to look at the waffle box near the deli outside of the exhibit and I overheard two women discussing the notion – frightening to them – that if Obama were to become president there would be more black babies in America.

And right behind these two fine twisted sisters were a group of older men discussing that this election should be treated (and I wrote this down) “as nothing short of WWII” and that “liberal fascism had to be defeated the way [the US] defeated Hitler.”

But check this, other journo’s were their keeping a low profile, business…(or pleasure for some?)-

I saw one journalist (although I was undercover so I could watch and listen without being followed as the others were) visibly as shaken as I was. I won’t name him, but he was calling in a story to his editor over the phone and what became clear is that he overheard the black baby conversation and ran out as upset as I was. I saw Lou Dobbs, but he was simply making the rounds. I also saw Mike Allen of Politico,

So we’ll see stories about this from Dobbs and Allen, yeah? For the sharp end of this reality there is extermination-

On August 8th our company executed a 10-year-old boy. We shot him in the back with a full magazine M-16. Approximately August 16th to August 20th – I’m not sure of the date – a man was taken out of his hootch sleeping, was put into a cave, and he was used for target practice by a lieutenant, the same lieutenant who had ordered the boy killed. Now they used him for target practice with an M-60, an M-16, and a 45.

The US backed action in Bolivia in this translated bulletin-

The Bolivian government communicated today to the national and international community that a civil coup has been put into action in the departmental capital city of Santa Cruz, led by the President of the Civic Committee, Branco Marinkovic, and supported by Prefect Ruben Costas. The national government will not respond to “provocations by fascist groups” and will defend democracy and national unity without declaring a state of emergency in the convulsed regions.

The government denounced several times in the last few weeks that there were preparations for violent protests with internal and external support. Today the predicted events materialized and began a “civic prefectural coup against the unity of the country and democracy,” said the government minister Alfredo Rada.

Students and activists of the [neo-fascist] group the Santa Cruz Youth Union (UCJ) and shock groups of thugs paid by the business-led civic movement from Santa Cruz attacked on Tuesday offices of Internal Revenue, the National Institute of  Land Reform (INRA) and the National Company of Telecommunications (ENTEL).

More @ SU. Also they update on the case of Ayodeji Omotade, upstanding citizen, good Samaritan who was arrested with British Airways (virtually a corporate arm of the state) complicity and faces a trial next week-

“The man, who was thought to be about 30, was being held down in his seat by four or five police officers as the other passengers filed on board, and was crying out in broken English that he was afraid he would die if he were sent back to Nigeria.  The officers took him off the plane, then returned and arrested Ayodeji Omotade, one of the passengers who had complained about his treatment. When others on board protested noisily about Mr Omotade’s detention, the captain ordered them all off the flight. The only person who eventually flew economy class on flight BA0075 was the unidentified deportee who did not want to go.”

Lots of ways to support him at his trial check the SU post or go to respectnigerians.com , here’s hoping like the Greenpeace and Raytheon 9 acquittals this allows a jury of peers to show the state we are not as tyrannical as they are or wish us to be. The vote of a jury might be the last true democratic choice people have (ie it has real power). And Dave writes more about the case of Habib Khan and the BBC quoting BNP talking points and I’ve just read the original trial report and it is shocking they extensively quote a BNP councillor as if he was from a legitimate political party, or is that now BBC policy to treat the BNP as just a regular party? The piece ends with Khan’s lawyer remarking-

Khan’s barrister, Simon Drew, said police investigations into the various incidents often “came to nothing” because of “generous failures by the system”.

‘various incidents‘- That is racist attacks by both the dead man (a BNP ‘activist’, father of seven and personal friend of BNP leader Griffin) and his son. It’s arguable that the response of the police while useful for white racists (generally allowing them to get away with their ‘activism’ and the only conclusion is some police sympathise with them) allowed the dispute to ferment and led to the death, and now the BNP are enthusiastically capitalising on the case. Which is a somewhat morbid strategy for its members.

Government Won’t Do Anything About The Commercialisation Of Slavery Records

This was the Number 10 petition

“A UK company is currently placing online colonial records of 3.000.000 Africans, relating to their enslavement. This is a corporate attempt to cash in on the increased interest during the bicentenary year. African people and descendants of slaves should not have to pay for such a service. This should be a free to view document, with all records being made public so the history can be known by all. Please sign this petition to get all govenment records made available free of charge to everyone.”

This was the UK Government’s pathetic response-

The original versions of these records are available for anyone to go and see, free of charge, at The National Archives’ reading rooms in Kew.

These records have been open to the public in the United Kingdom since 1821, initially at the Colonial Office in London where colonial governors were instructed to send copies for public inspection and, since 1862, at The National Archives (and formerly the Public Record Office).

Additionally, The National Archives have also produced a number of published resources to help Caribbean people to trace their roots. They have published, for example, two editions of its popular guidebook, Tracing your West Indian Ancestors, as well as six free research guides on the history of Britain’s involvement in slavery, the slave trade and its abolition.

The Government believes that organisation and individuals should have access to information, on non-exclusive terms, so that they can provide enhanced information-based products. The documents were therefore provided in response to an application from a commercial organisation who wanted to re-use the information as part of a service it wished to provide which included a searchable index of the names of enslaved people and slaveholders. Any such services provided are additional and complement the free service already offered by The National Archives. They are not a service provided by The National Archives.

We hope this response is helpful.

Well it is in so much as it shows what disingenuous corporate whores you are, making the records freely available in one office in London is not making them as available as putting them on the web. Something in this day and age that should be a standard procedure for democratising information. Allowing this to done by a profit making concern is to allow the freedom of the information to be put behind a pay wall on the web. You have pretended not fighting to keep this information freely available is to keep it…freely available. You have privatised wider access to these records. You mealy mouthed lawyerly parsing cowardly motherfuckers.

The Border and Immigration Agency In Denial

Today-

The most comprehensive examination of the UK’s asylum system ever conducted has found it “marred by inhumanity” and “not yet fit for purpose”.

The report, published by the Independent Asylum Commission, is a damning indictment of the Home Office’s failure to deal fairly with those applying for sanctuary in this country.

The commission found that Britain’s treatment of asylum-seekers “falls seriously below the standards to be expected of a humane and civilised society“. Its interim report will be delivered to the Home Office today by a delegation of asylum-seekers.

The report details how the “adversarial” system is failing applicants from the very first point of interview, with officials accused of stacking the odds against genuine claimants. “A ‘culture of disbelief’ persists among decision-makers,” it said. “Along with lack of access to legal advice for applicants this is leading to perverse and unjust decisions.”

The findings are the result of the most thorough look at the system in history, with testimonies from every sphere of society, including three former home secretaries, more than 100 NGOs, 90 asylum-seekers, the police, local authorities, and hundreds of citizens.

All-day hearings were held in seven major cities, where hundreds of people gave evidence, from those who brand the system too lenient to those who think it is a blot on the country’s human rights record.

As well as this current information, an independent academic body was tasked to gather all documents already published on the issue in the past five years, from both sides of the political spectrum.

But the Border and Immigration Agency has rejected the report, claiming it operates a “firm but humane” system.

Cognitive dissonance much BIA? To say the least the BIA’s response is totally unacceptable (I’m being awfully fucking polite here). It’s nice of the Independent Asylum Commission to catch up though, below are two previous posts that detail that the Border and Immigration Agency is a big stinking pile of arrogant, cruel, racist shit (in that way one might reflect it is the perfect institutional embodiment of the ignorant spiteful racism of the gutter press and their imbecilic fucking readers)-

The Border & Immigration Agency Is Not Fit For The Purpose

Buried Alive, The Migrant Gulag

Chief Exec Lin Homer (more of whom in those links) says-

“I totally refute any suggestion that we treat asylum applicants without care and compassion. We have a proud tradition in Britain of offering sanctuary to those who truly need our protection. We operate a firm but humane system, supporting those who are vulnerable with accommodation and assistance. But we expect those that a court says have no genuine need for asylum to return home voluntarily, saving taxpayers the expense of enforcing their return. We will enforce the removal of those who refuse to comply, always ensuring first that it is safe to do so.”

Well here are your choices Lin, you are either-
a/. a big fat liar…or
b/. mentally ill.
I’m sorry but those are your only choices here in reality. Either way you should not be holding your current position (something Birmingham people can appreciate after her NuLabour vote rigging exploits there, ahem. Oh look, we just found the reason she keeps failing upwards). This would be the agency that recently deported a cancer patient who then died, I would call that corporate manslaughter and is now trying to deport people to…Iraq (you honestly can’t make this shit up). So Lin, you should be fired and prosecuted. But in the post Blair -hey what’s so wrong with being a war criminal- Britain we have no such standards of ethical behaviour, that is another consequence of this war, an epidemic corruption at the heart of the state with no end in sight.

Fight the scum in the BIA- National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns

Delusions

Let’s remember this vote when NuLabour asks for our votes, 299 votes carried stopping an inquiry into the war-

The prime minister has survived a Commons call by the Conservatives for an immediate inquiry into the Iraq war. MPs rejected an attempt to force an independent probe, despite support from the Lib Dems and 12 Labour rebels.

The government’s parliamentary majority of 67 was more than halved as it won by 299 to 271 votes. A government amendment, recognising an time will come when an inquiry is “appropriate” but not during “important operations” in Iraq, was passed.

It was carried by 299 votes to 259 – a government majority of 40. Gordon Brown had said before Tuesday’s votes that there would be an inquiry when it is appropriate, but to hold one now would be a diversion for UK troops serving in Iraq.

No Gordon you didn’t say that, what you did was repeat Bush’s words when denying any oversight of how he acts. Yeah uppermost in a squaddie’s mind is what’s going on in Westminster, if it was, they wouldn’t be serving in the first place maybe. It’s also important no one looks too closely as the real ‘surge’ is underway (and btw, the ‘surge’ is a PR term that media adopted like good lackeys. Because ‘reinforcements’ doesn’t sound quite as exciting and has intimations of armies in trouble and conjures the spectre of defeat)-

The Iraqi executive branch, controlled by the 5 Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish Separatist parties want to make sure their rivals won’t win the next elections expected to take place before October. But unlike other pre-election preperations that include TV advertisements and sticking posters around the streets, the separatist Shiites in the Iraqi executive branch sends 50,000 troops to Basrah to kill their rivals (the nationalist Shiites).

what a great democracy Iraqis are enjoying!

This Bush-Maliki “preparation” started some hours after dick cheney pushed the executive branch to pass a the “provinces law” last week. The new law will decide whether Iraq will be partitioned into smaller sectarian regions, or will continue to be a united country with one central government.

Five Iraqi cities are under curfew and people from all around the country are participating in the nation-wide civil disobedience that was called for by al-sadr movement.

The Iraqi executive branch, backed by the US occupation authorities, described civil disobedience in Iraq today as “terrorism”. An Iraq government spokesperson said that individuals joining the nation-wide civil disobedience that was called for by Al-Sadr movement will not be tolerated, and that it falls under the counter-terrorism act #13, issued in 2005. The Iraqi Executive branch threatened to punish any governmental employees who don’t show up during the next day.

Yet again trips by the Bush cabal are quickly followed by conflict, funny that eh?

And something is really annoying me and I thought it wasn’t related to this post, but then I realised it was. I read this at C&L-

Pat Buchanan – First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Because that’s the same exceptionalism, white colonial paternal conservative bullshit that also frames the Iraq war, a rapist saying not only were they asking for it, they enjoyed it and they are only complaining to make trouble because you didn’t say you loved them. Utterly psychotic, utterly deluded fucking white patriot shit. Except it’s hardly ever remarked upon when it is operating in the context of Iraq, the kindly empire will bring freedom & democracy to the oppressed savages in the sandy places. Many Democrats & Republicans colluding in the nationalist fantasy of a massive militarist empire that somehow acts as a global Santa Claus, firm but fair, a good cop. Well Buchanan’s idiocy is the same as that idiocy.

George The Secret Socialist

Greg Palast- on Wednesday of this week, the unthinkable happened. Carlyle Capital went bankrupt. Who? That’s Carlyle as in Carlyle Group. James Baker, Senior Counsel. Notable partners, former and past: George Bush, the Bin Laden family and more dictators, potentates, pirates and presidents than you can count.

The Fed had to act. Bernanke opened the vault and dumped $200 billion on the poor little suffering bankers. They got the public treasure – and got to keep the Grinning’s house. There was no ‘quid’ of a foreclosure moratorium for the ‘pro quo’ of public bailout. Not one family was saved – but not one banker was left behind.

(ht2 Crooks & Liars who concentrate on the angle that Spitzer was targeted as he objected to rewarding the sub prime crooks, because if you started actually prosecuting all the rich people using prostitutes…But also worth reading for this- the sub prime scam was deliberately targeted at Black and Hispanic customers, see rich, capitalist and racist. Go Wall Street!).

Bush then lies to avoid heretical acknowledgement of the failure of Holy of Holies-The market now is in the process of correcting itself.

See the Church of the Free Market will forgive such transgressions (always happy to steal public money, bless ’em) as long as no one mentions it in public, except is it socialism when state intervention just benefits a tiny super rich elite? Maybe…Stalinism.